Mission Accomplished

From Think Progress:

Over on the Wonk Room, Matt Duss recalls this line from Osama bin Laden’s surprise late-October 2004 videotaped address:

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah’s permission… And it all shows that the real loser is… you. It’s the American people and their economy.

The CIA judged that Bin Laden’s videotaped message was an effort by al Qaeda to deliver four more years for President Bush, thus helping them recruit a new generation of terrorists.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/25/bin-laden-bleed/

Against McCain

Just read this scathing indictment of John McCain:

… while McCain’s campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence …

[T]he more one sees of [McCain’s] impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

My god, what flaming liberal said that about McCain?! Read on:

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.” …

In any case, McCain’s smear — that Cox “betrayed the public’s trust” — is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are “corrupt” or “betray the public’s trust,” two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people.

Man, who is this unpatriotic socialist? Well, you’ll know him by his true colors, a stark black and white that denies even gray exists, let alone real color.

The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain’s party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale.

Oh, of course, that must be George Will explaining that McCain isn’t merely a disappointment to conservatives, but is actually himself a leftist socialist.

Not only is McSame the next Duhbya, but he’ll preserve Duhbya’s relationship to conservatives – he’s not conservative enough! Shudder. I thought Sarah Failin placated the Radical Wrong. peace, mjh

George F. Will – McCain Loses His Head – washingtonpost.com

Prejudice Comes in All Colors

GOP Leader Won’t Resign, By Jeff Jones
Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal

By late morning, however, audio-taped C de Baca comments from a separate BBC radio interview began making the rounds in New Mexico.

       “I feel strongly that Hispanics will not support, in my generation and the generation around my age, are not going to support the Democratic candidate for president primarily because there is a strong feeling that African-Americans during the civil-rights movement took advantage, full advantage, of all the benefits and programs that the government offered, that were supposed to be offered to all minorities,” C de Baca said in the newly released interview with the British broadcasting giant.

       “But we were left behind, we were left sucking air, and we resented that ever since the ’60s, and I don’t see how a black president is going to change that,” C de Baca said in the interview recorded in Albuquerque last week in connection with a foreign journalist tour.

I’m outside any quarrel between Hispanics and African-Americans. I’m surprised, though, that a Hispanic would resent blacks “taking advantage” of benefits. C de Baca implies that blacks took more than their share and left Hispanics empty handed. An odd view for a conservative, who should resent anyone who takes advantage of government support – anyone other than countless corporations.

Time to recall this quote from just a few weeks ago:

Garcia, 71, lives in Doña Ana, just north of Las Cruces. She thinks Obama has come off as condescending and arrogant.

“I don’t know one single Hispanic over 50 who will cast a vote for Obama,” she said, conceding that “there have always been conflicts between blacks and browns.

New Mexico : Betting on the West : The Rocky Mountain News By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

peace, mjh

Double Standards

A friend of mine sent me the following. peace, mjh

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

(A) If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”

(B) Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, [yours is] a quintessential American story.

(A) If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

(B) Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.

(A) Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

(B) Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.

(A) If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor,  spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of  13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.

(B) If your total resume is: local weather girl,  4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

(A) If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.

(B) If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

(A) If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

(B) If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.

(A) If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.

(B) If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”,  with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA , your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Think Progress » The Sarah Palin Digest

 

Palin Believes The Founding Fathers Wrote The Pledge Of Allegiance. In 2006, when asked by the Eagle Forum Alaska if she found the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance offensive, Palin replied, “Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me.” But the words “Under God” didn’t appear in the Pledge until 1954. The Pledge itself wasn’t written until 1892. [Huffington Post, 9/1/08; Slate, 6/28/02]

Palin Responded ‘Hang ‘Em Up’ When Asked About The Death Penalty. When asked about the death penalty in extreme cases, Palin replied, “My goodness, hang ‘em up, yeah.” [Anchorage Daily News, 8/18/06] …

Palin Left Wasilla $20 Million In Debt. As mayor of Wasilla, Palin cut taxes while simultaneously expanding the town’s operating budget by almost $2 million. She ended her term in 2002 with Wasilla $20 million in debt. [Anchorage Daily News 10/23/06; the Politico, 8/29]

Think Progress » The Sarah Palin Digest

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams